I'm the Hero of This Story
by Divine Sally Bowles
Summary: "Do you know what you did to her? Really, Doctor, do you?" Rory has a heated confrontation with the Doctor about Amy shortly after joining the TARDIS. T for language.


**A/N: This was a fill for the prompt _11/Rory - blame_. It's a fairly scathing indictment, from Rory's perspective, of what the Doctor must have done to Amy's mental state, a confrontation I really wish the show would have given us. It's a roadblock I feel they would have to have gotten past in the early days of Rory joining the TARDIS, so that's when I set it, between "The Vampires of Venice" and "Amy's Choice." **

**Feedback is always obliged, but I ask there to be no character bashing, please.  
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><p>He should be calm. It had been one of the things his supervisors had liked best about him, back home—his ability to think clearly under pressure, to push aside every other thought but giving the patient the care they needed.<p>

Hell, _he_ had even said it the first time they met—everyone else was running about taking pictures of the sun going out, while Rory was the one focusing on what really mattered: the incongruity of a coma patient standing on the street with his dog.

But Rory didn't want to think about _him_ right now.

Indeed, he shoves past him, figuring that if he can't yell or scream or rage, then he can at least get out his anger in physicality, aggression. He shoves past him in the TARDIS' medical bay to get to the supplies he needs. A brace for her ankle. Antiseptic and a wet cloth to clean the gashes. Ice to at least ease the pain of the raised lump on her head.

He spreads everything out on the tray next to the bed they'd set Amy down on, sets to work with a certain single-mindedness others would envy. Indeed, the Doctor watches him with fingers twitching, the man who leaps from thought to thought in mere seconds unable to think of what he can do to help. Funny, that: a man named the Doctor standing in deference to the nurse.

He starts to say it. "Rory, I'm sor—"

The coldness in Rory's eyes, when he looks up, stops him dead.

Rory has to bite the inside of his cheek very, very hard to stop himself from lashing out. Amy is unconscious and has been for some time now, but she wouldn't like them arguing. _Her boys_, she calls them, with that smile, that laugh, that sparkle. No, there can be no hint of discord among her boys.

He turns back to Amy, unbuttoning her now-ragged shirt to get a better look at the gashes on her chest. He cleans them of the dirt of the embankment, gingerly applying bandages once he finishes. One of his fingers absently traces the lace at the edge of one of her bra's cups. It's streaked with dirt and mud, but probably salvageable. He makes a mental note to try and wash it later; it's one of her favorites. His, too.

The Doctor is fumbling to rephrase, his words an annoying buzz distracting Rory from his work, like a bee flying too close to his ear. "In fairness, I told her to stay put—I had no idea she'd moved—"

"You had no idea she'd moved to the edge and slipped off that nice cliff?" Rory snapped finally, after biting his cheek hard enough to draw blood. "No, that's right, you had no idea until you heard her screaming—"

"—and she's fine, isn't she? Look at you, working to make her good as new—"

"—she'll be in _pain_, Doctor, do you even understand that—?"

"Rory, I know you blame me for this—"

"_Trust_ me, Doctor, this is _not_ the first fucking thing I have blamed you for!"

The words are out before he can stop them, hanging in the air between them, over Amy's bed, suffocatingly insistent on being analyzed, asked about, deconstructed. The words he'd never meant to say—not to Amy, especially not to the Doctor. No, for all intents and purposes he is meant to be enjoying this, to be relishing the opportunity to see other worlds with his fiancee and her imaginary friend. He is the bumbling fiance, blindly following along. Hell, sometimes he is even the voice of reason.

He isn't thinking reasonably now, because despite his earlier resolution not to say a thing, it is all coming out, everything he has ever resented about this madman, this imaginary friend, this _Doctor_. "Do you know what you did to her? Really, Doctor, do you? Because I do. I was there. Maybe not from the beginning, but pretty damn close. I was eight. She saw me on the playground and asked if I wanted to play Doctor. I thought she meant medical, but no, she meant _you_. She used to make me dress up as you, she used to tell me stories, she used to show me _every_thing she made about you and when I asked her to be my girlfriend, I thought that would be it. I thought I would come first for once—for _once!_—and d'you know what happened? Do you?"

He stalks around to the other side of the bed, to the Doctor, resisting the urge to grab his collar or that damned bowtie and instead staring him straight in the eyes, saying with as much venom as he can muster, "_You_ did. We'd been dating for barely a few months and _you_ showed up, with your Prisoner Zero and your multiforms and your saving the world, and what do you think happened to _me?_ I was the boyfriend, but do you know how hard it was for her to say that? D'you remember that she called me a _friend_? But do you know what was _really_ easy for her to say? How great the Doctor was! Look what the Doctor had done! He'd saved the world from the A-_fucking_-traxi, he'd gotten rid of the multiform—never mind me! Never mind that I nearly got sacked, got told I should take a _lot_ of time off because of it—_I_ was the one who had those pictures, but what did it matter? The Doctor saved the day, and then he disappeared for two—more—_years!"_

His breathing is heavy now; it hurts his chest. His hands shake with how hard he's trying to restrain himself from doing serious harm to this man now that it's all coming out. Because he can't stop now, as much as his need for self-preservation is begging him to. No, he needs to get this out and let the chips fall where they may. Kicked out of the TARDIS, dumped by Amy—in this moment, he finds he doesn't quite care. He is tired of being second, tired of never being the hero. Tired of never being first in her thoughts. Tired of all of it.

"It was never me," he says finally, shakily, the rage dissipating into a certain kind of defeat—because really, will it ever be him? Even now, fixing her wounds, he is not the real hero, not the one who got them off the planet and out of danger. No, that is the Doctor; it is always the Doctor.

"Those two years, most of the time, you were all she could think about. She kept waiting for you. Fourteen _years_, Doctor. _Fourteen_. You _broke_ her and d'you know why I stayed with her? D'you know why I stayed with someone I wasn't always sure cared? Because I wanted to try and fix her, because I loved her that much. _Everyone_ left her—her parents died, her aunt Sharon was never around, _you_ left _twice_—and I wanted to be the one who stayed. I wanted to prove to her that someone could.

"She said yes. She agreed to marry me, and you know what? I wasn't as happy as I could have been, because every night she was still watching the stars. Still waiting for you. It has _never_ been me, Doctor. It might never be me. And I blame you for that. I blame _you_."

The Doctor has stood silent throughout all of this, and no words come for a long while. Finally, Rory sits on the bed and begins to wrap Amy's ankle, having finished cleaning and bandaging the gashes. The Doctor leaves the room.

Some time later, Rory has fallen asleep by Amy's bed, his hand twined loosely in hers. The Doctor waits, standing in the doorway of the medical bay and watching the girl who waited and the boy who waited for _her_ to notice_ him._

It stings more than it would have earlier when Amy wakes up and murmurs something that sounds suspiciously like, "MmmmDoctor?", despite her fiance's hand in hers. The Doctor forces a smile and strides to her bed, reaching down to smooth some of her hair, though he recoils his hand quickly and does not let it linger.

"Where 'm I?" Amy says groggily, half-lidded eyes flicking around the medbay and back to him, never once landing on Rory. "Never been here before..."

"TARDIS' medical bay. Took a bit of a spill—but Rory here patched you up, did a fine job of it," the Doctor says with that same pained smile.

"He does that," Amy murmurs, eyes closing once more, though he notes gratefully that they linger on Rory before they do. "'S one of the reasons 'm marrying him."

The Doctor nods at this, hopefully, almost. He skims his hand along her hair, whispers for her to sleep, adds a "Good night, Pond," to that.

He leaves the medbay, so many words ringing in his head, but none more so than Rory's.

_You_ broke_ her._

Yes, he supposes. He did.


End file.
